Light-reflecting ornament



Jan. 19 1926. 1,570,145

H. HELLER LIGHT REFLECTING ORNAMENT Filed March 20, 1925 ATTORNEYS".

Patented Jan. 19, 1926.

UNITED STATES HUGO HELLER, 0F MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN.

LIGHT-REFLECTING ORNAMENT.

Application filed March 20, 1925. Serial No. 16,945.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, Hum HELLER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Milwaukee, county of Milwaukee, and State of Visconsin, have invented new and useful Improvements in Light-Reflecting Ornaments, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in light reflecting ornaments designed particularly for use on Christmas trees, and also adapted for a great variety of decorative purposes.

Heretofore, ornaments of the class to which this invention pertams have been made of thin glass and have been exceedingly fragile; Theavailable contours have been limited in number by the limitations imposed by the art of glass working or blowing. It has also been difiicult to attach supporting connections without impairing the artistic design'of the ornament, and such connections frequently become agents for the destruction of the ornament by pressure upon relatively small knobs or connecting arms of thin glass projecting from the body of the ornament. Therefore, unless great care is exercised in attaching the ornaments to a Christmas tree or other support and in removing them therefrom, there is little probability of their being capable of use on more than one or two occasions.

The object of this invention is to provide an ornament suitable for the described purpose which will be of equal, or greater, attractiveness; and which will be non-frangible, flexibly adjustable to the requirements of any given installation; and in which a portion of the material composing the orna-- ment may be utilized to form a means for connecting it with the support.

It is a further object of the invention to provide an ornament which is rendered suitable for the described purpose by reason of the material of which it is constructed. In order to make the device fire-proof, flexible, and non-frangible, and in order that the device may have inherently a. lustrous or light reflecting surface it is preferred to construct it of metal. Ordinary sheet metal is too heavy for the purpose and has been found to unduly bend and displace the branches of a Christmas tree to which ornaments made thereof are attached. I prefer, therefore, to use foil in the construction of ornaments embodying this invention, and for reasons hereinafter to be brought out I particularly prefer aluminum foil.

This application is a continuation in part of an application filed by me May 19, 1922 for light reflecting ornaments, Serial No. 562,095, and is also a continuation in part of an application filed jointly by myself and HobartF. Frimmel on the 17th day of February, 1923, Serial No. 619,664:. The present application, however, relates to subject matter of which I am the sole inventor.

In the drawings:

Figures 1, 2, 3, and i illustrate a few specimens of my improved ornament having widely differing characteristic contours indieating a substantially infinite range of pos sible contour.

\Vhile my improved ornament may be made of any metallic foil which is sufficientlyductile I have discovered that aluminum foil is ideal for this use, since it has a highly polished surface admirably suited for light reflection which does not readily tarnish, and its flexibility without resilience enables it to be adjusted to the requirements of any given installation without danger of breakage.

In the manufacture of a globular ornament such as is illustrated inFigure 1, the spherical portion is preferably formed of two hemispherical sections 1 and 2 made of foil, the margins of which may be arranged to slightly telescope one within the other. These margins may then be connected together by any suitable glue or cement. The section 1 may be provided with a knob 3 having a projecting stem or strip 4 of aluminum which may serve as a connecting member, this strip or tongue being nonresilient, but highly flexible. If desired, the section 1 may also be provided with slots or openings 5 which allow light toenter and be reflected from the interior surface. Forked members 6 cut away to form these slots may also be left connected at one end with the body of the section 1 and may, therefore, serve as a means for suspending the ornament from a support either independently or in connection with the suspension stem or tongue t projecting from the knob 3.

The outer surface of the ornament may be colored and provided with various ornamental designs in the same manner that the glass ornaments have been colored,painted,

or stained, with the additional contrasting effects produced by exposing portions of the interior, such portions preferably having the natural metallic luster of aluminum.

I find that thin sheet aluminum may be readily shaped to any desired contour and may have either a polished or a granular surface whereby the effects secured by plain glass or frosted glass may be readily obtained with my improved non-franglble orn a ments.

here the ornament comprises the bellshaped design disclosed in Figure 2, may be stamped completely from a single piece of aluminum foil. The crown 10 of the bell may be provided with an aperture in its central portion through which a piece of aluminum wire 12 may be passed to serve as a connecting member, the end of the wire being bent or rolled to form an enlargement 13 which prevents the wire from passing entirely through the opening 11. It w1ll, of course, be understood that if desired this same type of connector may be employed to support the globular ornament shown in Figure 1.

In Figure 3, I have illustrated an orna mental aluminum basket, the body 14 of which is illustrated as oval, although it may obviously be formed in any desired shape. The outwardly turned margins 15 may be separately formed and attached to the body by projecting tongues 16 struck up from either the body or from the rim portion 16. The handles 17 may be formed of strips of aluminum and these may be separately connected or may be struck up from the rim or body and woven or braided together to form I the handles. One or more of these strips 111 each handle may be bent outwardly to form a connecting tongue 18.

In Figure l, I have illustrated an ornament having the general form of a hon bon cup with a smooth surfaced bottom portion 18 and fluted margins, or marginal portions 19. A connecting tongue 20 is struck up from the bottom of the cup and is adapted to be bent about the branch of the tree in a position to hold the cup upright on the branch. The outer surface may be highly colored, but the inner surface is preferably left uncolo-red whereby the flutings catch the rays of light and reflect them in various directions, the light rays being dissipated in such a manner as to avoid glare and produce an exceedingly attractive display.

The foil being non-frangible and highly flexible, it is obvious that it can be pressed or shaped into a multitude of designs and that the ornaments can be passed in many instances partially around the limb or trunk of a tree without destroying their beauty or effectiveness as ornaments. The flexible connecting tongues may be not only readily bent about the limb or branch of a tree or other support, but they may be unbent and all 1,570,145

repeatedly bent and straightened without breaking them, the material being non-resiliont. It is easy to shape it and reshape it at will, and it, therefore, becomes possible to supply partially formed shapes upon which the ultimate owner or user may exercise his own skill and artistic ability in producing such designs as he may desire. These ornaments are substantially indestructible, and I am able to produce them at substantially the same cost as that of the glass ones. All of the illustrated devices lend themselves readily for manufacture from foil, and it will be seen that some of them, particularly the basket il .strated in Figure 3, would be very dillic' to manufacture from such light weight as it is necessary to use for Christmas tree ornaments. l have selected uncommon types of Christmas tree ornaments such as those shown in Figures 1 and 3 as well as the more common types shown in Figures 2 and l in order to demonstrate the adaptability and serviceability of foil for these purpes s, and the fact that beautiful and unusual ornaments may be made of foil which would be difiicult and highly impracticable to make from any other substance.

I claim:

1. As a new article of manufacture, a Christmas tree ornament provided with a body fashioned of metallic foil having its surface decorated with color and provided with means for supporting it from the branch of a Christmas tree.

2. As a new article of manufacture, a Christmas tree ornament comprising a body portion of aluminum foil provided with an external decorative coating of coloring matter.

8. A hollow Christmas tree ornament composed of interconnected sections, each sec tion being formed of a non-corrosive, nonresilient, flexible metal having a reflecting surface, and having portions of its walls struck up to expose the interior and form connecting members.

A Christmas tree ornament comprising a hollow article having body walls fashioned of aluminum foil and provided with means for its suspension.

5. A Christmas tree ornament composed of noncorrosive, flexible, substantially in elastic metal capable of receiving a high polish, and having portions thereof struck up and projected outwardly in the form of connecting tongues adapted to be bent into engaging relation to a support.

6. A Christmas tree ornament comprising a device having a central cavity, the *alls about said cavity being fashioned from non-frangible, flexible foil having a fluted surface, and suihcient body to maintain its shape when fluted.

7. A. Christn'ias tree ornament comprising a device having a central cavity, the walls about said cavity being shapedfrom nonfrangible, flexible, sheet material having a fluted surface, and sufficient body to maintain its shape when fluted, said material being of substantially the weight of metallic foil.

8. A Christmas tree ornament comprising a body portion formed from metallic foil with a natural light-reflecting surface adapted to receive color, decorative pigment afiixed to said surface, and means for suspending said body portion in a pendent position.

9. As a new article of manufacture, a Christmas tree ornament shaped from metallic foil and provided with a device adapted for engagement with a tree.

10. As a new article of manufacture, an ornament for a Christmas tree fashioned to a permanent shape from metallicfoil and of sufiicient rigidity to retain such shape.

11. As a new article of manufacture, an ornament for a Christmas tree fashioned to a permanent shape from metallic foil and of suflicient rigidity to retain such shape,

said ornament having its visible surface decorated with pigment and being provided with means for suspending the ornament in pendent position from a tree.

12. As a new article of manufacture, a Christmas tree ornament having a body fashioned of a thin metallic sheet material, said material being sufliciently thin to permit free manual flexing but having sufficient rigidity to maintain the shape to which the ornament is fashioned, the surface of the material in said ornament being decorated with color.

13. As a new article of manufacture, a Christmas tree 'ornamjent having a body fashioned of a thin aluminum sheet material, 'said material being sufiiciently thin to permit free manual flexing, but having sufficient rigidity to maintain the shape to which the ornament is fashioned, the surface of the material in said ornament being decorated with color.

14. An ornament fashioned to a definite shape from thin metallic sheet material having a natural light reflecting surface adapted to receive color, said material being freely flexible manually, but having sufficient rigidity to maintain the shape to which the ornament is fashioned, a decorative pigment applied to the sheet surface, and means for suspending the ornament in pendant position.

15. As a new article of manufacture an ornament for a Christmas tree having walls shaped from self-supporting foil of sufficient inherent rigidity to retain such shape.

16. As a new article of manufacture an ornament for a Christmas tree having walls shaped from self-supporting foil of suflicient rigidity to retain such shape, said foil walls being single-ply.

HUGO HELLER. 

